While wine snobs have blighted
the earth for thousands of years (you can bet there was
at least one guy curling his lip at the vintage of Jesus’ first
and best miracle), beer snobbery is a relatively young
art, especially in the U.S.

This is because every beer in the
country once tasted exactly the same. Oh sure, there
were Bud lovers and MGD aficionados who would swear they
could tell the difference, but if you gave them a blind
taste test, you’d soon
discover they’d just keep asking for another “test
taste” until there wasn’t any beer left and
they were passed out on your sofa.

Furthermore, beer was considered the
balm of the common man, it was not something you swirled
in a glass and judged by its “nose.” It
was something you swilled from a plastic cup and sometimes
shot through your nose.

Then the microbrewery revolution swept the country and
soon every abandoned firehouse, bank and shoe factory
was outfitted with a vat and turning out every possible
form and flavor of beer you could imagine, and some you
would rather not.

It was perfectly natural then,
with so many different beers to choose from, that a learned
cadre of beer experts would appear to explain to the
unsophisticated masses what is “good beer” and
what “has the nose and character
of a harbor-town harlot with a penchant for walking into walls caked with
manure.” Thus
arrived the beer snob.

Beer Vs. Wine Snobbery

Beer snobbery is less dangerous.
While wine snobs have been around long enough to be nearly
universally despised and even hunted for sport in certain
parts of the South, beer snobs are so new they’re considered by the general public to be as harmless as those people
who carve elaborate sculptures out of Spam—someone to be viewed more
with bemusement than with the scope of a high-powered rifle.

The dress is casual.
Wine snobs have a strict dress code involving turtlenecks, glasses designed
to sit on the end of one's nose and silk scarves, but a beer snob can
pretty much dress anyway he likes. Aside from the snooty expression, a
typical beer snob is nearly indistinguishable from your least favorite
brother-in-law.

The position doesn’t
require a sensitive palate.
In fact, a too-sensitive palate just gets in the way.
If a beer snob’s
mind is busy trying to decipher a vast array of signals from his tongue, it
becomes very difficult for him to think up a clever way to insult a fellow beer
snob’s tie.

You don’t need to know what the hell you’re
talking about.
The fact of the matter is, no one really knows how to
tell a good beer from a bad one. The prestigious Beerophile
Digest, for example, will declare McChumley’s
Mauled Herring Ale to be “a delightful triumph of art and nature right
up there with the pulsating shower head” while the brash Xtreme Brewski
Review will assert the same ale to be “the sort of crap drank by hoity-toities
who take lots of showers and stuff.”

You don’t have
to learn a foreign language.
While a wine snob is expected to speak enough French
to enrage a Frenchman, the beer snob only needs to speak
enough English to infuriate an Englishman, which only
requires slurring, “Hey you remember when we saved
your butts from the Germans back in Dubya Dubya Two?
Remember that?”

The terminology is simple and straightforward.
For example, the guy who pours the beer is a bartender and not some snooty guy whose title looks suspiciously
similar to smellier but is actually pronounced like the
cry of a gardener pleasantly surprised while trying to
explain the holes in your lawn: “Some mole—yay!”

Enthusiasm and relish are more important than experience
and research.
When it comes to rating beers, you don’t need to
be able to identify the vintage or know which field the
hops were grown in. This would just confuse you. Neither
do you need to attend mundane festivals, read a bunch
of dreary books or even sample a lot of different beers.
All you need is a big helping of enthusiasm and relish,
and by that I mean sarcasm and snootiness.

The Wide World of Beers

When you were a teenager you probably thought all beers
were just called “beer” or
maybe “brewski” if you were feeling technical. But as a beer snob
you should be aware that there are many subcategories of beers, in the same
way that certain dogs are called “Cocker Spaniels” and “Rat
Terriers,” and some large rats are called “Chihuahuas.”

ale: some purists will
tell you this English brew is not really beer at all,
but these are the same type of people who will tell you
that drinking a case of beer in the company of your dog
is not a “kick-ass
time.”

bitter: this hoppy English
stalwart is a favorite among elderly men who smoke pipes,
carry change purses and will insist that Field Marshal
Rommel was “indeed crafty
as a fox, but no match for this cunning English bulldog.”

bock: this German beer
is named for the billy goat, because, just like a billy
goat, it’s
lively, strong and smells like a billy goat.

doppelbock: German for double
billy goat. You get the
idea.

export: this is a type
of beer so awful the locals refuse to drink it, so the
brewery ships it off to foreigners who don’t know
any better.

fruit: these flavored beers were introduced to appeal
to women and certain men who get very defensive when you
inform them they are plainly homosexual.

lager: there are those
who like to say this light, golden beer is served cold
so as to distinguish it from urine, but the truth of the
matter is urine also has a much better head.

malt liquor: some will argue this is not beer at all,
but let me tell you something: if it tastes like a duck,
smells like a duck and makes you walk like a duck, it is
probably malt liquor.

porter: this strong beer was named for the rugged laborers
who made it popular in Old England and would quite frankly
drink billy goat sweat if it got them drunk.

stout: these dark, rich beers are called such because
after drinking a dozen of them you will feel stout enough
to wrestle all four of the cops by yourself.

trappist: this type
of ale is brewed by monks noted for their skill at trapping
tourists in their monastery’s
overpriced gift shops. They changed their name from trapper
to trappist in 1816 when they realized they spoke French
and thus needed a fancier title.

The Three Prime Rules of Judging a Beer

1.) Use the proper terminology
Thirty years ago the only terms you needed to express
a beer’s character
were “tastes great” and “less filling.” The microbrew
explosion, however, made it necessary to invent literally hundreds of new adjectives
to explain how great or non-filling a beer truly is. Fortunately, you won’t
have to memorize most of them because most are fake words that drunk beer experts
made up on the spot and probably winced at when they saw them in print later.
What else can explain why grown men are using words like Chlorophenolic,
Balling Degrees, Sparge and Kräusening to describe something that can be purchased
in the form of a Party Ball?

Brewmaster: So, what do you think of our delicious new
Squashed Sulfur Beetle Stout?

In fact, the only terms you really
need to know are nutty, worty, fruity,
hoppy, grainy, mouthy, sulpheristical, pine-needley, and bodacious.
What do they mean? No one knows for sure. The important
thing it to use as many of them as possible when you rate
a beer. For example, you should never just say, “This beer is worty.” Instead
you should say, “I find the wortiness of this beer
fruity yet mouthy, with pine-needley undertones of sulpheristicallity,
bodaciousamentally speaking.”

2.) Employ all of your senses.
If you taste a beer and think, “Gee, that tastes good,” do
not say so. Use every pretentious bone in your body to
resist even the slightest sign of enjoyment. Just because
a beer tastes good does not mean it is good. You must
bring into play your other four senses to make a proper
judgement.

Sight: Look at the beer’s label. If you can see
little gold medals, describe the beer as “a shining
avatar lesser beers aspire to.” Do you see foreign
words? If they look European, call the beer a “traditional,
old-country stalwart.” If the words look like the
symbols used in the funny pages in place of curse words,
label the beer “an exotic wayfarer with delightful
stories to tell.” If the label has a singing fish,
dancing moose or any other sort of animal doing something
an animal does not normally do, call it “a brash
upstart with a lot to prove.”

Sound: Have you heard
anyone else talking about the beer? If you have, try to
cover your bases by incorporating as many of these opinions
into your judgement as possible: “Yes, it’s
the one in the green bottle, but on the other hand, it
goes for six bucks a sixer at the Liquorama up on Fifth Street, right across
the street from the Conoco Station with the hot chick working the register.”

Feel: Do you feel the
brewery rep standing nearby will reward a good rating
with free stuff? If so, upgrade your evaluation according
to how much free stuff you think you might get. Thus,
a merely decent beer may become “a
mind-boggling triumph,” a bad one transforms into “a
powerful new statement” and something that could
pass as window cleaner ascends to “a real up and
comer.” You don’t have to tell the rep it will
be “up and coming” the next time you visit
the rest room.

Smell: Does the beer
smell foreign, or, in beer expert parlance, skunky? Foreigness
is a good thing because foreign countries are farther
away and the farther away a brewery is the better the
beer tastes. Especially if it says Export on the label, because
foreigners don’t want to embarrass
their country and thus only export the really good stuff.

3.) When in doubt, speak in tongues.
To express an unqualified opinion of a beer is akin to
waving a big flag at the enemy, so they know exactly
where to shoot. If you are unsure about the quality of
a beer because you can’t see the label and are
not sure if the rep is going to give you free stuff,
you have to deliver an opinion so obtuse onlookers won’t
know if you’re complimenting the beer or
plan on using it to poison the rats in your cellar.

Instead of saying, “I
guess it’s sorta okay,” you should say: “Seems
its pompitude has been finely demastered in a congenial sort of way, yet its
essence disambiguates the fustification of its
mischarateristics to the degree I wonder about the referentialability
of the primal dewortnicity, if I may paraphrase famed
beer critic Baron Von Troutenmyer.”

It’s hard to disagree with a man you can’t understand, though they
might try. If a competing beer snob tries to draw you out from behind your
brilliant smokescreen by saying, “Hate to disagree, but I think the dewortitude
terrifically interpolative and fusticating with character,” glower at
him for an instant and say in a very stiff tone, “Funny, I could have swore I just said that.”

Another safe tactic is to compare the
beer with one that doesn’t actually
exist. Because the beer ranks swell every week, even the most knowledgeable
of beer experts won’t call you out, for fear of appearing “out
of the loop.” So instead actually stating an opinion of a beer, say
it is “a
lot like The Abandoned Shoe Factory Brewery’s new Soothsucker Pine
Sap Ale, in the sense that they’re completely different.”

Types of Beer Snobs

Deciding you want to be a beer snob is not enough. You also have to decide what
sort of beer snob you want to be.

The Beer Fuehrer
This curmudgeonly gentlemen will declare he would rather
guzzle urine than drink what he considers “bad beer.” And
by bad he means any beer that comes in a can, has commercials
on television, or has been heard of by more than fifty
people. He can only pity the poor fools who sit in bars
drinking the swill disgorged by the vast corporate vats,
when they could be drinking swill produced in much smaller
ones.

The Hops Head
The power-crazed Dr. Frankenstein of beer snobs, this wretched soul has
descended so deeply into the pit of snobbery he has convinced himself that
the vile liquid (he will call it something akin to Super Duper Black Cherry
Berry Power Porter) he concocted in his basement is not only non-poisonious,
but superior to the stuff it took monks 50 generations to perfect. One
caveat: the longer and more grandiose the title of his obscene creation,
the more likely it will be good for poisoning the rats in your cellar.

The Beer Geek
The beer world equivalent of a Trekkie, this fan is forever
making pilgrimages to far flung festivals and conventions,
will belong to any number of beer associations (and
wears the T-shirts to prove it) and has never had
sex with a woman where there wasn’t money involved.
Beards are common and they have a powerful fetish for
steins.

The Beer Lover
These are the Rex Reeds of the beer snob community. They
have never met a beer that was not “gorgeously fabulous” or “fabulously gorgeous.” The
closest they ever come to a bad review is when they mistake the glass of water
used to clear the palate for beer, and even then they’ll give it three
stars and declare it “a promising new light lager worth keeping your
eye on.”

Interacting with Other Beer Snobs
While it’s perfectly fine and extremely pleasurable
to rabidly denounce whatever swill your non-beer snob
acquaintances are slopping down their gauche gullets,
you must carefully weigh each word when amongst your
own.

You will probably meet them at a beer
club meeting. Beer snobs are generally very eager to form
beer clubs, partly to discuss new beers, but mostly because
their regular friends won’t drink with them any
more.

At these meetings members are expected
to present their “discoveries.” A
discovery is an exciting new beer you introduce to your fellow beer snobs.
If a fellow beer snob introduces a new beer to you, however,
it is not called a discovery. It is called a travesty.

When judging another fellow’s travesty, don’t
worry about the taste so much as to where the fellow is
situated on the Beer Snob Ladder. Those above you should
be treated with grudging deference. Those below are to
be condescended to in the manner of a weary yet indulgent
grown-up patting the head of a simple-minded yet well-meaning
mongoloid child eager to show off yet another shiny and
utterly worthless object that caught one of his unattractively
bulging eyes.

You should save your vast stores of vitriol for those
sharing the same rung as you, for you cannot ascend
the ladder unless you plant a foot firmly upon their
credibility.

When one of your rung mates foolishly encourages you to
try one of his new travesties, smile agreeably, take a
sip, then act as if a bug just flew into your mouth. After
letting your dismay register with the club, turn your
head discreetly and spit into your handkerchief. Subtlety
is key. Do not behave as if the bug is a giant dung beetle,
but rather a common housefly that has spent the day joyfully
wallowing in billy goat manure. Deliver the coup
de grace by muttering, “Well,
that was certainly interesting.” In the parlance of the beer snob, interesting roughly translates into “One large step below Satan’s venereal
urine.”

When it’s your turn to present
a discovery, be keenly aware the act is the beer snob
equivalent of wagging your testicles between the bars
of the Mongoose Cage at feeding time. Rivals will do their
level best to defame and discredit you, which is why you
must immediately distance yourself as far from your discovery
as possible. Act as if it were a hideously deformed orphan you found wandering
the streets and, out of the goodness of your heart, are just trying to make
a few introductions so he can possibly secure a future position as grave digger
or bell ringer. Make sure you damn it to the degree that any response at all
will seem unmitigated praise. Then, once you get a fingerhold, start suggesting
that your orphan might not only be suitable for a grave digger position, but
the head grave digger position.

You: “Don’t
be alarmed. It may seem a horrid wretch, but given a chance
it might just reveal itself as being merely disgusting.”

Rival Beer Snob: “Well, you’re
dead on about its horridly disgusting wretchedness, but
I once ate a large beetle that tasted only slightly better.”

You: “Funny you should say that!
Because noted beer expert Sir Edward Edwardsbottom declared
this very beer to have the potential of an especially large and ambitious dung beetle.”

Rival
Beer Snob: “Dung beetle,
yes, that makes sense, I—"

You: “Do you really think it that ambitious and promising? I must say, there is something
rather large and bombastic about it. Why, you’ve
given me a new appreciation of this bold brew. Though
perhaps not as enthusiastic as you, I think it may be
a real up and comer!”